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The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1896 no. 73

The bulletin of Atlanta University

NUMBER 73. ATLANTA, GEORGIA. APRIL, 1896. ATLANTA UNIVERSITY ATLANTA, GA., Is a Christian Institution, unsec- tarian in its management and influence, wholly controlled by an independent Board of Trustees, and receiving no aid from city, state or national government, or benevolent society. Has 265 students in College, Normal, College Preparatory and Sub-Normal departments, under 23 officers and teachers. Trains teachers and leaders of their race from among the sons and daughters of the Freedmen of the South. Has sent out 285 graduates from College and Normal courses, nearly all of whom, together with hundreds of past undergraduates, are engaged in teaching, and other useful work in Georgia and surrounding States. Owns four large brick buildings, on sixty-five acres of land, one mile from the centre of Atlanta, Ga., library of 8,000 volumes, apparatus and other equipment—all valued at not less than a quarter of a million dollars. Having no endowment (except about $33,000, mostly for special objects), the Institution requires at least $20,000 a year in donations from its friends, to continue the work now in hand, and a fund of about $500,000 to put that work-on a permanent basis. Annual scholarships of $40 each are asked for to provide for the tuition of one student for one year, over and above the nominal tuition fees paid by the student. Subscriptions of $100 and upwards, or any smaller sums, are solicited for general current expenses. Remittances of donations, or inquiries for farther information, may be addressed to Pres. Horace Bumstead, D. D., Atlanta, Ga. The Governor of Georgia has pardoned a Negro who was under sentence of death. The woman in the case persisted in saying that she identified the defendant as the criminal, while the prosecuting attorney was convinced of his innocence, and one of the last acts of the presiding judge on his death-bed was to write a note to the Governor urging his pardon. Two police detectives in Atlanta have been indicted by a grand jury on the charge of having beaten a Negro in order to extort from him testimony that they wished. When it is remembered that all the members of the jury are white, and the principal witness in the case is colored, an indictment, even if no conviction follows, is a hopeful sign of the times. During the conference at Tuskegee, Principal Washington expressed his appre-ciation of higher education as well as of industrial training. He said that he wished college graduates would study at agricultural schools, and then teach the people how to farm scientifically. He also remarked that he would like college graduates as teachers in the Tuskegee shops. To meet such demands the number of college graduates among the Negroes needs to be largely increased. Rev. Sam Jones has been holding a series of meetings in the Moody Tabernacle in Atlanta, and has held special services for men and for women and for Negroes. When he announced the meeting for Negroes, he said that if white people came they must take the back seats, and he requested the white women to wash the dishes that night, so that their servants might attend. His language to the Negroes was no more pointed and picturesque than to whites. Indeed, it hardly could be. The Constitution had a clever cartoon, showing Mr, Jones "running the devil out of town." There appeared not long ago in Leslie's Weekly the following paragraph : "The experience of Grace Hoadley Dodge may be said to prove the paradox that the best charity is no charity. Beginning with the loftiest missionary enthusiasm to attempt the reform of criminals, she has proceeded, step by step, to the position that the proper education of teachers in a paid college is the noblest philanthropy," A conclusion reached by a philanthropist of so varied and extensive experience and observation as Miss Dodge has had, ought to carry great weight. Rev. Mr. Means, of Windham, Conn., spent a few days at the University and preached in the chapel on Sunday. Visits of friends so interested and genial are an agreeable tonic, even when they are not followed by a donation and an appreciative letter. Mr. Means has our thanks for visit, preaching, donation and letter, and a standing invitation to come again. There can be no doubt of the fact that public sentiment against lynching is growing stronger all the time. This is evident from editorials in newspapers, recommendations of governors, and, in some instances, the enactment of laws. The arguments used are the preservation of the good name of a community, the danger of engendering lawlessness, and the higher ground of simple justice and right. Although this evolution of a correct sentiment is encouraging to students of history and people in general, it furnishes rather cold comfort to the widow of a man who was beaten to death with a harness-tug because he was suspected of larceny. It is painful to notice that some of the Southern newspapers do not now speak so respectfully of the Negroes as they did during the continuance of the Atlanta Exposition. They use the word "darkey" again, and spell Negro with two "g's." Then one paper has printed some horrid cartoons. In one of these, some colored ascensionists are pictured as going up to heaven, and under the cartoon are the words, "Fly-away Niggers." The "Flyaway" is good enough wit, although some of us can remember when intelligent white people in cultured communities prepared their ascension robes. The Atlanta Constitution gives some figures from the census of 1890 with reference to the colored population. The number in the country of African descent is 7,470,040—6,337,980 blacks, 956,989 mulattoes, 105.135 quadroons, and 69,936 octoroons, Georgia has the largest number, 858,815, its total population being 1,837,353, Mississippi has 742,559 Negroes, and 547,041 whites, and South Carolina 688,934 Negroes and '462.215 whites. The Constitution says that in the whole country the whites are increasing faster than the Negroes, but does not say how this is in the Southern States alone, It concludes its article with this optimistic paragraph : "With these figures before us, there is no longer any ground for believing that the race problem will ever give us any trouble.''

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Transcript

NUMBER 73. ATLANTA, GEORGIA. APRIL, 1896. ATLANTA UNIVERSITY ATLANTA, GA., Is a Christian Institution, unsec- tarian in its management and influence, wholly controlled by an independent Board of Trustees, and receiving no aid from city, state or national government, or benevolent society. Has 265 students in College, Normal, College Preparatory and Sub-Normal departments, under 23 officers and teachers. Trains teachers and leaders of their race from among the sons and daughters of the Freedmen of the South. Has sent out 285 graduates from College and Normal courses, nearly all of whom, together with hundreds of past undergraduates, are engaged in teaching, and other useful work in Georgia and surrounding States. Owns four large brick buildings, on sixty-five acres of land, one mile from the centre of Atlanta, Ga., library of 8,000 volumes, apparatus and other equipment—all valued at not less than a quarter of a million dollars. Having no endowment (except about $33,000, mostly for special objects), the Institution requires at least $20,000 a year in donations from its friends, to continue the work now in hand, and a fund of about $500,000 to put that work-on a permanent basis. Annual scholarships of $40 each are asked for to provide for the tuition of one student for one year, over and above the nominal tuition fees paid by the student. Subscriptions of $100 and upwards, or any smaller sums, are solicited for general current expenses. Remittances of donations, or inquiries for farther information, may be addressed to Pres. Horace Bumstead, D. D., Atlanta, Ga. The Governor of Georgia has pardoned a Negro who was under sentence of death. The woman in the case persisted in saying that she identified the defendant as the criminal, while the prosecuting attorney was convinced of his innocence, and one of the last acts of the presiding judge on his death-bed was to write a note to the Governor urging his pardon. Two police detectives in Atlanta have been indicted by a grand jury on the charge of having beaten a Negro in order to extort from him testimony that they wished. When it is remembered that all the members of the jury are white, and the principal witness in the case is colored, an indictment, even if no conviction follows, is a hopeful sign of the times. During the conference at Tuskegee, Principal Washington expressed his appre-ciation of higher education as well as of industrial training. He said that he wished college graduates would study at agricultural schools, and then teach the people how to farm scientifically. He also remarked that he would like college graduates as teachers in the Tuskegee shops. To meet such demands the number of college graduates among the Negroes needs to be largely increased. Rev. Sam Jones has been holding a series of meetings in the Moody Tabernacle in Atlanta, and has held special services for men and for women and for Negroes. When he announced the meeting for Negroes, he said that if white people came they must take the back seats, and he requested the white women to wash the dishes that night, so that their servants might attend. His language to the Negroes was no more pointed and picturesque than to whites. Indeed, it hardly could be. The Constitution had a clever cartoon, showing Mr, Jones "running the devil out of town." There appeared not long ago in Leslie's Weekly the following paragraph : "The experience of Grace Hoadley Dodge may be said to prove the paradox that the best charity is no charity. Beginning with the loftiest missionary enthusiasm to attempt the reform of criminals, she has proceeded, step by step, to the position that the proper education of teachers in a paid college is the noblest philanthropy," A conclusion reached by a philanthropist of so varied and extensive experience and observation as Miss Dodge has had, ought to carry great weight. Rev. Mr. Means, of Windham, Conn., spent a few days at the University and preached in the chapel on Sunday. Visits of friends so interested and genial are an agreeable tonic, even when they are not followed by a donation and an appreciative letter. Mr. Means has our thanks for visit, preaching, donation and letter, and a standing invitation to come again. There can be no doubt of the fact that public sentiment against lynching is growing stronger all the time. This is evident from editorials in newspapers, recommendations of governors, and, in some instances, the enactment of laws. The arguments used are the preservation of the good name of a community, the danger of engendering lawlessness, and the higher ground of simple justice and right. Although this evolution of a correct sentiment is encouraging to students of history and people in general, it furnishes rather cold comfort to the widow of a man who was beaten to death with a harness-tug because he was suspected of larceny. It is painful to notice that some of the Southern newspapers do not now speak so respectfully of the Negroes as they did during the continuance of the Atlanta Exposition. They use the word "darkey" again, and spell Negro with two "g's." Then one paper has printed some horrid cartoons. In one of these, some colored ascensionists are pictured as going up to heaven, and under the cartoon are the words, "Fly-away Niggers." The "Flyaway" is good enough wit, although some of us can remember when intelligent white people in cultured communities prepared their ascension robes. The Atlanta Constitution gives some figures from the census of 1890 with reference to the colored population. The number in the country of African descent is 7,470,040—6,337,980 blacks, 956,989 mulattoes, 105.135 quadroons, and 69,936 octoroons, Georgia has the largest number, 858,815, its total population being 1,837,353, Mississippi has 742,559 Negroes, and 547,041 whites, and South Carolina 688,934 Negroes and '462.215 whites. The Constitution says that in the whole country the whites are increasing faster than the Negroes, but does not say how this is in the Southern States alone, It concludes its article with this optimistic paragraph : "With these figures before us, there is no longer any ground for believing that the race problem will ever give us any trouble.''